If you have £1,315 ($2,213) and space to spare for a piece of automotive history, hit Ebay in the next 31 hours and grab yourself this 1998 Mini Cooper prototype shell. It's got a few surprises under the metal.

The seller believes this to be a one-off, a former running prototype of the Cooper S from around 1998, which was later stripped and "sent to a company to test the door seals". Seems likely as it wasn't until 1999 that BMW took over the project entirely. The details are certainly interesting.

It's got a much more basic round headlamp under the cover, Rover-stamped glass and a different gas cap. The shape of the vents on front wings also got changed by the time the Cooper hit the showrooms three years later.